A Noble Pair of Brothers (The Underwood Mysteries Book 1) Read Free Page A

physically tired and not sure how much longer she was going to be able to continue in her present employment.  Charlotte was now seventeen and feeling that she was far too old to have a governess and therefore grew daily more difficult to control.  Isobel was the only member of the family with an inclination towards the academic but her father was not a man who felt that educating females was a useful pursuit.  He saw anything beyond basic reading, writing and arithmetic as a waste of time, effort and more especially money. She would soon be sixteen – and quite old enough to be married according to her father.
    The sound of the gusting wind drew Verity to the window and she looked out on a scene of growing chaos with the treetops lashing about and the grasses in the paddock dipping and waving as the strengthening breeze passed across – it really was working up to be quite a violent storm and she shuddered, never having been very fond of high winds.  She had, as a child, seen a huge oak tree uprooted and crashed down upon the roof of a cottage, which had broken open as easily as an eggshell beneath the weight of the branches.  She had peered in through the front door as she passed and could never forget the oddity of seeing the room filled with leaves and twigs where the day before had been a warm and cosy home.
    She banished the memory, for if she continued with this train of thought, she would begin to recall her dear papa and then tears would fall in good earnest.  She had lost him less than a year ago, but necessity had forced her into immediately searching for employment – the Reverend Chapell had rarely managed to hold onto his stipend when so many of his parishioners had required financial aid, but this generosity of spirit had left his daughter in severe penury at his unexpected demise.
    She turned her attention back to the problem in hand, wondering what her next step should be. She felt she might have made a bad error in making an enemy of Charlotte, who could not be relied upon to forgive and forget any slight, real or imagined.
    Verity was fond of Isobel, tolerated Charlotte, accepted the other sisters in the house for the shrinking violets that they were, brow-beaten and bullied by their over-bearing father.  She disliked the son of the house, who showed every sign of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a loud-mouthed misogynist.  All in all, she could think of many reasons to leave and only one to stay, but still she hesitated.  There was something fundamentally wrong in the way the young people were being raised, lacking a mother’s care being only part of the problem, and she felt a duty to try and right things before she moved on, though, in truth, she had no idea how she could ever hope to prevail against the will of Sir Henry Wynter.
    She had thought the time of feudal rulers was ended many years ago, but apparently not here in Bracken Tor.  Sir Henry was the nearest thing to God these people knew, owning, as he did, their homes, their livelihoods, their futures.  One word from him and a man could see his entire life disintegrate before his very eyes.
    Verity’s prim mind would have liked to skirt the issue of Sir Henry’s rights over the women in the district, but honesty compelled her to acknowledge that even in this the man still held total sway.  His by-blows littered the outlying villages and he freely and proudly admitted it.  She found it extremely distasteful that he had, in one of his drunken rambles, told her that he had been infuriated that his wife had continually produced useless daughters, when he had at least three illegitimate sons.  The final birth had thankfully been the longed-for son, but his wife had died as the child was born and he had been as jubilant at her demise as he had at the arrival of the boy.
    At first Verity, in her desperation, had been so thankful for her employment that she had tried to overlook Sir Henry’s myriad failings, but this